Sunday, November 8, 2015

All Hands Meeting, 3 November 2015

By Lt Col
Juan Tinnirello (and pictures)

Capt Luis Rivas

Squadron Commander Capt Rivas welcomed everybody and asked Col Tinnirello to lead the pledge of allegiance to
the flag. Commander Rivas welcomed new member James Weeks and proceeded to give
a review of all the events in another very busy month for the squadron. Besides
the participation in the Group 2 SAREX at Palo Alto, the FEMA mission
for the forest fire was the main one, with a large participation of squadron
members where more that 14,000 pictures were taken altogether.

Also, there
were a couple of ELT missions and one for the State of California.

Maj Luneau
renewed his Form 5 and Maj DeFord renewed his Ground Team Leader. Also on the assets
usage, the aircraft flew 30.8 hours and the van traveled 516 miles.

1st Lt Patrick Bitz

Lt Bitz talked about the importance of remembering the armed forces personnel that gave
their lives to defend our freedom. What
better way to do it that by placing wreaths on their tombstones at the Golden
Gate National Cemetery, in San Bruno this coming December. The program called Wreaths Across America is
helping to do so and we can participate by purchasing wreaths. More information is provided at the end of this article.

Maj DeFord
announced that there is a new way to have a small last minute planned ES
mission to help with training a few people.
Contact him for details.

Also, Lt
Gast is our newly minted CFI-G for gliders. Congratulations - and members, take
advantage of this new opportunity.

Coming up on
November 17, Capt Hayes will have an improved talk from the one he gave at the
Wing Conference about “Radios for Aircrew” and for everyone that uses CAP
radios. A pot luck is planned, so call
him to coordinate if you plan to attend.

December 1,
is our next “All Hands Meeting”. During the meeting there was a majority of
members that wished to have a Holiday Party.
More will follow as Capt Rivas looks into the different possibilities.

Promotions: Lt Adams was promoted to 1st Lt and SM Roudnev was promoted to 2nd Lt.

Lt Choate receiving

Orientation ribbon award

Lt Kraus receiving Rescue ribbon award

Lt Adams receiving Leadership award

In the Safety Education Maj Fridell made a very interesting presentation about “Bird Strikes”. The inspiration for the topic started at the Livermore Airport while doing some work and a strange noise started to become more pronounced. It was a flock of geese! The statistics for this type of incident are very impressive. If you were not there, you missed an excellent presentation plus insights to protect you about this type of accidents.

Capt Rivas and Lt Adams’s

wife, Pamela, attaching the epaulets

Capt Rivas and Capt Hayes

attaching epaulets to 2nd Lt Roudnev

Capt. Rivas
finished the meeting thanking SM Wayne for facilitating press coverage on the
Concord mission and also thanking Capt Rex Beach for all the work he did during
his participation as a squadron member and who is now leaving for the East Coast. Fairwell Rex, we will miss you.

Maj Fridell presented “Bird Strike”

Wreath
Sponsorship Program:

Go to www.squadron188.org on the left side column go to
the bottom to “Wreaths Across America” and click
on it. On the “Contents” list click on 5Donate. Then follow the directions for Webb Order.

If you have problems, please contact 1st Lt Patrick
Bitz at 925-858-9590

Besides honoring our heroes you help Squadron 188
finances, as we receive $5.00 for each wreath sold. Thank you for participating and tell your
family, friends and coworkers about it.

Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, is a nonprofit organization with more than 61,000 members nationwide. CAP, in its Air Force auxiliary role, performs 90 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and was credited by the AFRCC with saving 113 lives in fiscal year 2010. Its volunteers also perform homeland security, disaster relief and drug interdiction missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. The members play a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to the more than 26,000 young people currently participating in CAP cadet programs. CAP has been performing missions for America for 69 years. It is the largest sponsor annually of Wreaths Across America, an initiative to remember, honor and teach about the sacrifices of U.S. military veterans. For more information on Civil Air Patrol, visit www.gocivilairpatrol.com or www.capvolunteernow.com.

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